Institute for Relational and Group Psychotherapy

04/11/2025

In Memoriam – Dr Earl Hopper (1938 – 2025)

With profound sorrow, the Greek Institute for Relational and Group Psychotherapy announces the passing of Dr Earl Hopper, a towering figure in psychoanalysis and group analysis, a mentor to many of us, and a dear friend.

Dr Hopper’s work has shaped generations of clinicians, theorists, and supervisors across the world. His theory of the social unconscious, his elaboration of the tripartite matrix, and his groundbreaking formulation of the fourth basic assumption – Incohesion: Aggregation/Massification (ba I:A/M) offered a new paradigm for understanding the intersection of trauma, group life, and culture . His thought illuminated how social systems and institutions hold both creative and traumatogenic forces within their unconscious life.

He embodied the very bridge he so often described—between psychoanalysis and group analysis, between the individual and the collective, between trauma and the possibility of repair . Until his very last days, Earl continued to teach, supervise, and conduct therapy, sharing his thinking with generosity and humility.

We feel a special resonance remembering that he was Keynote Speaker at the recent IARPP Conference in Athens, where his presence inspired clinicians from every corner of the relational world. For our Institute, his guidance and friendship were invaluable, as many of our members considered him both teacher and companion in the demanding yet hopeful work of group life.

To our colleagues in Israel—the community of psychoanalysts and group analysts with whom Earl worked so closely—we extend our deepest condolences. May the Israeli and international communities find strength in the continuity of his thought and in the living bridges he built among us.

Earl Hopper taught us that even within incohesion and fragmentation, communication and meaning can re-emerge. His legacy endures in the countless groups, institutions, and hearts he touched.

On behalf of the Greek Institute for Relational and Group Psychotherapy in deep pain and great gratitude without envy

Stavros Charalambides, Director

31/10/2025

Early Bird Registration !We are pleased to announce the 3rd Panhellenic Symposium of the Institute for Relational and Group Psychotherapy , which will take place online in English on February 5–6 and in person in Athens in Greek on February 7–8, 2026. This year’s Symposium is titled:

“The Social Unconscious and Fatherhood: Relational Psychoanalysis and Group Psychotherapy”

Early Bird || 3rd Symposium Relational Psychoanalysis and Group Psychotherapy View in browser ­ Discover the Panels of the Online Segment (5th-6th February) & the In Vivo Symposium (7th-8th February)

09/10/2025

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06/10/2025

Η παρακάτω ανακοίνωση αφορά διαρκή κοινωφελή προσφορά του Ινστιτούτου Σχεσιακής και Ομαδικής Ψυχοθεραπείας μέχρι εξάντλησης των διατιθέμενων θέσεων παράλληλης ....

04/10/2025

Discover the Panels of the Online Segment of the Symposium on Fatherhood & Relational Psychoanalysis, February 5–6 2026 || 3rd Symposium Relational Psychoanalysis and Group Psychotherapy View in brows

30/09/2025

This year’s Symposium is titled
The Social Unconscious and Fatherhood: Relational Psychoanalysis and Group Psychotherapy

The Symposium aims to illuminate the multidimensional aspects of fatherhood — psychic, social, institutional, and cultural — through the lens of relational psychoanalytic and group psychotherapeutic thinking, with a direct link to the concept of the “group turn” in relational psychoanalysis (Charalambides, 2024). The social unconscious, as described by Earl Hopper and further developed in post-institutional and intergenerational readings, constitutes a reservoir of collective memory and trauma that structures the symbolic presence and absence of the paternal figure.

We are delighted to present the panels and honored to host the following speakers of the online segment of the Symposium (February 5–6). These discussions bring together distinguished scholars and clinicians to explore the intersections of fatherhood, the social unconscious, and the transformative potential of group and relational approaches.

https://conta.cc/4gKTB7L

Discover the Panels of the Online Segment of the Symposium on Fatherhood & Relational Psychoanalysis, February 5–6 2026 || 3rd Symposium Relational Psychoanalysis and Group Psychotherapy View in brows

18/09/2025

Ελάτε στη διαδικτυακή Μεγάλη Ομάδα στις 20 Σεπτεμβρίου και συμμετάσχετε σε μια μοναδική συζήτηση για την ψυχική υγεία και την Τεχνητή Νοημοσύνη. Θα αναλύσουμε τη μεταβίβαση και την επίδραση της ΤΝ στην ψυχανάλυση. Η συμμετοχή είναι δωρεάν για ειδικευόμενους ΙΣΟΨ. #Ψυχανάλυση #ΤεχνητήΝοημοσύνη #Μεταβίβαση #ΨυχικήΥγεία #ΣυλλογικόΑσυνείδητο

https://conta.cc/4mqfp9T

Email from Institute for Relational & Group Psychotherapy,Ltd,(Greece based) ΔΙΑΔΙΚΤΥΑΚΗ ΜΕΓΑΛΗ ΟΜΑΔΑ 20 ΣΕΠΤΕΜΒΡΙΟΥ: "Με ποιον μιλά η ψυχή όταν ο θεραπευτής είναι μηχανή; Τεχνητή Νοημοσύνη, Μεταβίβασ

06/09/2025

https://conta.cc/4mWr1ms

Email from Institute for Relational & Group Psychotherapy,Ltd,(Greece based) και με Διαδικτυακή Παρακολούθηση       Institute for Relational & Group Psychotherapy| 2106981289 | Κηφισίας 90, Αμπελόκηπο

05/09/2025

Ψυχοθεραπευτικά προγράμματα ΙΣΟΨ στην σχεσιακή ψυχανάλυση και ομαδική ψυχοθεραπεία και διαδικτυακά !έναρξη Σεπτέμβριος 2025.

https://conta.cc/4mWr1ms

26/08/2025

On behalf of the Greek Institute for Relational and Group Psychotherapy, regarding Israel Palestine drama , reference to illegally occupied Cyprus by Turkish regime

Athens, August 26, 2025
On behalf of the Institute for Relational and Group Psychotherapy (IRGP)

Dear colleagues and friends,

As Director of the Institute for Relational and Group Psychotherapy and Representative of the Greek community within it, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the members of the two Israeli psychoanalytic institutes—the Tel Aviv Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and the Israeli Institute of Group Analysis—for their courageous, clear, and humane public statements regarding the war in Gaza.

Your explicit acknowledgements are not only moving, but profoundly necessary in a historical moment when the voice of ethical thought is in danger of being silenced. You have spoken bravely for the sanctity of human life, for the urgent need to end the violence, and for the pain that penetrates both sides of this tragic conflict.

As Greeks and Greek Cypriots, we know all too well what genocide and mass violence mean. We have endured repeated traumatic national experiences—from the Asia Minor Catastrophe to the Turkish invasion and occupation of Cyprus. The genocide currently unfolding in Palestine has taken on dramatic and undeniable proportions, while the international community remains either unable—or unwilling—to act effectively.

At the same time, we unequivocally condemn the calculated tactics of the Hamas terrorists, who continue to hold Israeli civilians—both dead and alive—as hostages, thus contributing to the very machinery of destruction that harms their own people. The dehumanization of the Other and the use of suffering as a political weapon can never be justified—not even in the name of resistance.

As psychoanalysts and group psychotherapists, and as democratic citizens, we also firmly oppose any form of antisemitism or Islamophobia that exploits this human tragedy. In particular, the BDS movement in its current form dangerously conflates the authoritarian Israeli government with the broader Israeli and Jewish people, thereby isolating those clear-thinking individuals—within and beyond Israel—who bravely protest state violence.

Moreover, this movement deliberately spreads misinformation about the historical and political spectrum of Zionism, flattening and distorting its meaning by equating it entirely with the authoritarianism and brutality of the current Israeli regime. This kind of historical revisionism does not promote dialogue—it undermines it, and sabotages every possibility for coexistence.

At the same time, we call upon the international community to show equal moral concern for another long-standing injustice: the ongoing illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus by the Turkish military since 1974. This occupation, with its thousands of victims, rapes, cultural destruction, and systematic violations of human rights, remains inexplicably absent from the global moral and political agenda.

Psychoanalytic and group-oriented thinking cannot and must not remain neutral in the face of the collapse of human dignity. We thank you for speaking out—and we join our voices with yours.

Sincerely,
Stavros Charalambides
Director of the Institute for Relational and Group Psychotherapy
Representative of the Greek community of the Institute

31/07/2025

https://conta.cc/4ogCA8W

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